Biography Axl Rose

W. Axl Rose

(born William Bruce Rose, Jr. on February 6, 1962 in Lafayette, Indiana) is an American musician, best known as the frontman of Guns N' Roses.

The only original member still part of the band's line-up, Rose places high in numerous polls as one of hard rock's all-time greatest frontmen and is also infamous for his onstage antics and disputes with former bandmates and others in the entertainment business.

Once in Los Angeles, Rose began performing with various local bands, including Rapidfire, Rose, L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose. While struggling to make an impact on the Hollywood music scene, Rose held down a variety of survival jobs, including the position of night manager at the Tower Records location on Sunset Boulevard. In an attempt to earn money, he and Stradlin even smoked cigarettes for a scientific study at UCLA for the reported wages of $8/hour.

Rose and his L.A. Guns bandmate Tracii Guns formed Guns N' Roses in March 1985; the band was a merger of L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose, and featured musicians who had played for one or both groups, including Ole Beich and Duff McKagan. The band debuted at the Troubadour in Hollywood and proceeded to play the L.A. circuit, eventually building a fan following and attracting the attention of several record companies.

Unlike the other members of Guns N' Roses, Rose was never known for excessive drug use. He did not disavow the use of illicit substances, stating in a 1989 interview, "I have a different physical constitution and different mindset about drugs than anybody I've known in Hollywood, because I don't abstain from doing drugs, but I won't allow myself to have a fuckin' habit. I won't allow it." After Guns N' Roses rose to success, Rose noted that he had stopped using any sort of hard drugs.

Although Rose has not been known for alcohol abuse, on June 27, 2006, he was arrested in Stockholm, Sweden, after an early morning altercation in his hotel lobby with hotel security. Rose is alleged to have bitten a security guard's leg and shattered an antique lobby mirror while in a drunken rage. Rose later commented in a press release: "We had a great gig in Stockholm and I am not going to let this incident spoil that. My assistant Beta and I were talking in the lobby of the hotel when security started to give us a hard time. My only concern was to make sure she was ok." After spending the next several hours in a Stockholm drunk tank, Rose admitted to all charges and paid roughly $6,000 in fines and was released and the Summer European tour continued as scheduled.

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